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2017 Workshop Performances: School of American Ballet

California

By California
in New York City Ballet

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sandik

sandik

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Jack Reed said:

You got me going now, Natalia.  With two sailors and a girl in a cafe, A la Francaix starts out like Fancy Free, so don't you want that one on the program, too?  Earlier.  As the opener?  Then La Sylphide, and Scotch.  And A la Francaix to end up, to leave the audience dissolving in helpless laughter, not to mention fatigue?  No?  No, I suppose not.

 

 

 

 

Why stop at a single program -- why not a festival?

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sandik

sandik

Posted
Posted
58 minutes ago, Natalia said:

 

In Edinburgh?!

It could start there, and tour.

 

Summer is coming, people, and it's getting close to silly season -- perhaps we should spend a little time programming a fantasy festival?

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Natalia

Natalia

Posted
Posted

I'd love to hear about tonight's SAB Workshop Gala from Jack or others who may have attended! I was mostly impressed by what I saw at the Sat matinee. I can only imagine how it went tonight. 

 

Also, I'm wondering if/when the new NYCB apprentices will be announced?

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Jack Reed

Jack Reed

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 6/5/2017 at 8:31 PM, Natalia said:

I'd love to hear about tonight's SAB Workshop Gala from Jack or others who may have attended! I was mostly impressed by what I saw at the Sat matinee. I can only imagine how it went tonight. 

 

Also, I'm wondering if/when the new NYCB apprentices will be announced?

 

Just briefly, as I am at breakfast, but Gabriella Domini is such a Sylph!  Such a "natural"!  Did Martins program Scotch on her account?  You could think.  It's not just the lightness, the willowy quality, it's the stage presence - for example, she lifts her partner's droopy arms, tilts and turns her head to check - yes, that's right - and moves on - these touches of the role are built-in, or course, but she doesn't show them, do them, she makes them.  Three times I've seen her - the first time - well, okay, we're not supposed to write about rehearsals, but it was then I felt rewarded for the effort it cost this old man to get here from Chicago.

 

I'm sorry for Natalia not to have seen this unimaginably wonderful creature, but there will be other opportunities (speaking of apprentices).  But in the company she will not have the same association with such teacher/coaches as Suki Schorer anymore.  On the other hand, she was satisfying in Scenes de Ballet too; it didn't take moment to pick her out, paired as the dancer are in that, she doesn't really have a double.

 

Yes, there were others on stage, notably Andres Zuniga - notable for the nobility he brought to his role, not to mention his partnering - everything she needed, as far as I could see, and his own fine dancing.  Not bad for a teenager?  Pretty good for any dancer!  And there were other ballets, and I look forward to canbelto and others to round out the picture.

Edited by Jack Reed
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Natalia

Natalia

Posted
Posted

Thanks, Jack...and writing through breakfast, no less. Sounds like a winning group of senior SAB students, including maybe a few apprentices for NYCB and the other fine companies (PNB, MCB, etc.) that often hire from the school?

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Helene

Helene

Posted
Posted

I can't remember any dancers Peter Boal has hired directly out of SAB.  Either they were NYCB dancers -- the Orzas, Korbes, Lin-Yee, and Renko early (ish) in their careers and Weese at the end of hers -- dancers with other companies who had studied with Boal when he was teaching at SAB -- Griffiths, for example -- or they were SAB students who did their last year or two at Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and got into the company in the standard route:  Apprentice, Corps, etc., like Generosa and Dammiel Cruz, who attended SAB as a kid and was one of the rare locals who progressed into the Professional Division.

 

Boal also hired back dancers who had been in the company (Grant) or Professional Division students of PNBS who've danced elsewhere (Taylor, Pertl, Ryan), as well a dancers from other companies, some of whom had little or no SAB training, which makes sense, because even the youngest of his former students are out of school by now.

 

But it sounds like a bumper crop at SAB, and maybe if there is a dancer or two who doesn't fit Martins' type needs at the moment or would be typecast and not given opportunities in roles that they'd get in smaller companies.

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Helene

Helene

Posted
Posted

Postlewaite was a Russell/Stowell hire, and may also have come directly from SAB.  I know they hired Jonathan Porretta directly out of SAB.  Jonathan Porretta has told the story several times of being in class, thinking that the "old" guy sitting in front watching was a donor, and, with a friend, doing all kinds of over-the-top impersonations of dying swans, etc.  (And for anyone who saw Porretta in his early PNB days, imagining what extra "over-the-top" was is a stretch.)

 

Finally his friend said, "You know who that guy is, right?  He's Kent Stowell, AD of PNB."  Porretta thought it was all over, and he had blown his chance.  Then Stowell went up to him in the hallway after class and offered him an apprenticeship!

 

They had already been given a heads up by someone at SAB, according to one of them at a Q&A from a while back.

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sandik

sandik

Posted
Posted

More and more, companies are bringing potential hires in to their school programs (PNB does a "Professional Division" that generally lasts two years), so when you look at their roster they have the little asterisk that says "PNB School."  But it doesn't always mean that they did the bulk of their training here.  I think of it like finishing school.

 

And then there's the summer school aspect -- so many kids go so many places for summer sessions, in a variation of an audition.

 

I can't remember off the top of my head if Angelica Generosa did a summer session here, or if she did the PD program, but she came directly from SAB.  Helene -- do you know?

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Helene

Helene

Posted
Posted

Postlewaite may have come directly from SAB to PNB, but something in the back of my brain thinks he spent a year in the school first.

 

Things shifted under the Russell/Stowell years:  At first, most of the Principals seemed to be hired directly from the outside, with a few exceptions, like Barker.  When I first started seeing the company in the '90's, they tended to hire in dancers as Soloists for a year or so, and then promoting them to Principal, like Stanton, Nadeau, Gibson, Maraval, Nakamura, and Wevers, although they also hired Le Yin directly as a Principal.  Lisa Apple was hired as a Soloist took a bit longer to get to Principal.  They also hired some lovely Russian-trained soloists.  (Or maybe corps and made soloists.)  San Francisco Ballet was a great poaching ground for them. 

 

Gradually, as they built the school, the students started to rise more regularly through the ranks, or at least to be cast as if they were rising.  They promoted a few through, like Imler, Bold, Pantastico, and Porretta -- officially announced under Boal in his first year, but usually the contracts are done the spring before.  Some more were already soloists and were promoted to Principal under Boal, and as the years have gone by, he's brought many of the Russell/Stowell corps members through the ranks, like Rausch, Dec, Laura Tisserand, who all came through the school, and Foster, Moore, who came straight into the corps from other companies.  Among the Soloists, Joshua Grant was hired by R/S as an Apprentice in the early 00's, left in 2004, and then came back under Boal, who promoted him to Soloist.  All of the other Soloists and all of the current corps are Boal hires, either from the School as apprentices or from other companies.

 

Edited to add:  I'm remembering Generosa from a Next Step or school performance, but that could be my mind playing tricks on me.

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